Volusia, Flagler ‘prom closets’ offer dresses to impress for less

Friday

Apr 25, 2014 at 12:01 AMApr 25, 2014 at 6:06 AM

By Natalie Kornicksnatalie.kornicks@news-jrnl.com

PALM COAST Cindy Konjo knows what she’s looking for.Sandwiched between two clothing racks in a classroom bordered by white concrete-block walls, the Flagler Palm Coast High School senior parts a curtain of dresses hoping to find an elegant long, black gown with a side slit that she can borrow for her last prom.Taken over by design teacher Sheila Knighton beginning in 2012, the FPC “Prom Closet” has more than 400 donated items, including dresses, purses and shoes, that students can borrow at no cost from the school for the annual rite-of-passage dance at the Hilton Daytona Beach Resort on May 9.“There are so many other things to spend money on senior year, so this is definitely cheaper and easier than buying a dress,” said Konjo, 17, an Advanced Placement student who is saving money to attend Miami Dade College’s School of Nursing in the fall to be a physician assistant.Konjo is not the only student cutting back on prom expenses. The average American household will spend 14 percent less on the springtime dance this year compared with last year, according to the 2014 Visa Prom Spending Survey released April 9.Following three years of increases, the amount of money American families spend on things like clothes, transportation, tickets, dinner and flowers for the formal has gone down from $1,139 last year to $978 this year, the report states.“We did not survey the ‘why,’ ... but I would hope folks would come to their senses and see this is just a high school dance and realize you don’t need to break the bank and spend like celebrities,” said Nat Sillin, Visa’s head of U.S. financial education. Most girls never even wear their prom dresses again, Konjo pointed out, so purchasing one “doesn’t make sense.”“And guys borrow tuxes, so they understand why you wouldn’t want to buy a dress; it makes you look smart, if anything,” Konjo said before taking another look at the dress selection that includes brands such as BCBG, Dillard’s and David’s Bridal, some of which were priced at more than $100 and have never been worn.Raising her left arm to hold up a short, sheer black cocktail dress draped on a plastic hanger, Konjo tilted her head intently and surveyed the garment as if it was a piece of fine art. After checking the tag for size and holding the option up to her body, she pushed aside a purple floor-length ball gown made of tulle and hung the black dress back on the metal bar.Although students like Konjo contribute to the decrease in prom spending, the number is still disproportionately higher in the U.S., according to Visa’s Sillin. That could be attributed to a “social arms race” that causes parents and students to feel pressured into “spending extravagantly,” he said. Kathy Summerlot, a guidance secretary who has collected about 40 donated dresses at Matanzas High School, said in an email that parents might be less concerned about buying their children clothes for the dance if more students saw what schools had to offer for free.“Prom would not be such a financial burden on some of our families who try their best to provide for their children,” said Summerlot, who began asking friends and former students for dresses five years ago.“It’s a stigma, you know, for kids to admit that they’re not able to go to prom because they can’t afford it,” she said.Other area high schools, like New Smyrna Beach, have similar borrowing systems for students who can’t purchase prom attire or who choose not to.“For some of the students, it’s a ‘needs’ thing; others, it’s just the smart thing to do,” said New Smyrna drama teacher Kendra Blazi, who originally started collecting used prom dresses for students in the school’s theater department in 2011.Blazi said the selection is “much larger this year,” since she’s been using Facebook to contact people looking to get rid of dresses, shoes, purses, suits and ties.“We’ve had 50 dresses donated in the last two weeks ... (and) now I have entire costume racks devoted to nothing but prom dresses,” she said. “Girls come in and see me during lunch and tell me what size dress they are. ... I have them go down to the bathroom to try them on and sometimes they even like the first one.”That was the case for Konjo, who went downstairs to try on a short black strapless dress with metallic embellishment around the waist. Within minutes she came back beaming and left with the dress in hand moments later.“I don’t keep records,” said Knighton, whose background teaching home economics at FPC for 20 years qualified her to manage the school’s Prom Closet. “When I first took over, I thought about doing all that, but I decided against it because I didn’t want anyone to ever feel negative about it. We have so many dresses I’m not really worried if one isn’t returned.”While there is now a large variety of formal attire to choose from at Flagler Palm Coast and New Smyrna, Knighton and Blazi both said one thing the schools are missing is larger sizes.“And that’s what you don’t come by very often,” said Knighton, who began maintaining the Prom Closet a few years after Rebecca DeLorenzo, president of the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce, came up with the idea in 2009 after cleaning out her closet.“You know, over the years you collect quite a few dresses, some that don’t fit anymore, some you just don’t wear anymore, and I thought that was a good opportunity to donate ... to kids who can’t afford new dresses,” said DeLorenzo, remembering how big an expense prom was for her in high school when she didn’t have a lot of cash.She also noted that prom closets are good for both students and community commerce. “If we can get somebody that doesn’t have to worry about a dress, but buys shoes and gets their hair done, that helps those local businesses,” DeLorenzo said. “And kids are stressed enough with testing, graduating and peer pressure that finding a dress or tux for prom shouldn’t add to that. ... (The Prom Closet) lets them keep their head held up high while dressing the part.”

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